


I Will Not Tire of You

by forthewidowsinparadise



Category: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Snow Day, there's a little bit of sexual content but it is bare minimum, they are dumb goofy idiots and are very in love, this has very little plot i just needed to write some silly fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12956832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthewidowsinparadise/pseuds/forthewidowsinparadise
Summary: "For a while, theories of the earth and literature prove to be imaginary. This here place is a blank sheet: no curfews, no turtlenecks, no mothers or fathers, no writings due on mid-twentieth century Colombia. There is only a room. Only them two, alone on the carpet."-or-Trapped inside by a snow storm, Simon and Bram get some much needed alone time.





	I Will Not Tire of You

Monday morning, Simon is sulking into his bowl of Frosted Flakes. One spoonful with annoyance, one spoonful with a cliché of teenage angst; this was supposed to be a good week, originally. He pulls out his phone to text Bram the opposite: _I think our weekend plans might be ruined._ He starts to type out why, but then deletes it all—it’s too much to complain about, and he’s not the type to whine. But he is the type to mull in shit, so he just sits and frowns, mouth so full of cereal that his mother can’t interpret his expression.

Not that she would stop to anyway; she and Simon’s dad are too busy rushing around the kitchen like chickens with their heads cut off. Their flight leaves in three hours—they have plenty of time—but, regardless, it’s a Spier vacation tradition to completely lose it over every little detail. Shoving pieces of toast in their mouths here, double checking for passports there, counting cash over and over and over again: Simon’s worried they might fizzle out and decide not to go at all. Bieber just sits on his bed, head moving back and forth with Emily and Jack, dizzying himself.

Nora looks over the chaos with sleepy, evil amusement, but Simon resents it. He gets a text back from Bram— _Driving now…tell me at school. Love you._ —and it only makes him smile a little bit. Ok, it makes him smile a lot, but he’s still not a happy camper.

Even less so when a jacket smacks into his face. “Come on, lover boy.” Jack pipes up, shrugging on his own jacket and trying not to look amused. “You’ll see him in tee-minus ten minutes. Or can you survive that long?”

Simon rolls his eyes. “I thought you weren’t supposed to go to Cancun until this weekend?” He asks, trying to seem more inquisitive than annoyed. But, well, he’s not so indiscreet.

Emily kisses his temple—wetly, just to spite him. “We know you were looking forward to a weekend alone, but we told you, Si. Dad’s lawyer friend has a big court case on Sunday, so she’s moving the wedding to Thursday. There’s nothing we can do.”

He knows that already—fuck, he _knows._ He just wishes it weren’t true. He wishes he still felt the mischievous excitement he had felt last week, when his parents had announced they were leaving town from Friday until Monday night. A whole weekend, following a brutal week of tests and labs and assignments, for him to unwind. And, if that wasn’t joyful news enough, they then allowed Nora to stay at a friend’s for the weekend—a whole weekend _alone. Then_ Bram’s mom approved him going on a hiking excursion with Nick—who was really going with Garrett. A whole weekend alone _with Bram._ That meant double digits of hours of shameless cuddling and making out and sex and, in wait of it, Simon’s delight had ascended for days.

Needless to say, at the drop of the proverbial bomb, his mood crashed hard.

“Alright, taxi’s here.” Emily says from the front window, interrupting Simon and his little grunts and grumbles. The rest of the family follows her out to the driveway, and goes through the motions of a goodbye. Nobody holds on too long and, before they know it, parents are tucked in a taxi and the kids are waving enthusiastically from Simon’s car.

When they’re gone, Nora smirks, amused at her brother’s frown. “Just because it’s not the weekend doesn’t mean you can’t have him over.” She says. “I’ll go over to Hannah’s if you want to be alone.”

Simon snorts; fucking Nora never misses a damn thing. 

“Thanks.” He says, and leaves it at that. As a last thought, he pulls out his phone and opens his thread with Bram. _Ok, drive safe. See you in a few._ He writes, before adding a complimentary _I love you too_ and putting the car into reverse. They drive to school in relative silence, Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas album playing softly in the background. He hears Nora grunt beside him.

“Just don’t fuck on the couch, please. I sit there.”

 _“Nora,_ oh my _God.”_

~~~

They don’t fuck on the couch. 

Or anywhere else, for that matter. Now, this is not for a lack of wanting to, or a lack of trying, mind you; Bram comes over to study Monday night, and they’ve laid out their books on the coffee table so they can sit unnecessarily close on the couch. They are discussing _Chronicle of a Death Foretold,_ Bram’s notes open on their laps so one cover is on Simon’s leg and the other on Bram’s—Simon’s hand rests restlessly under the spine. They have an English test on Wednesday.

“So, basically, I think Marquez _wants_ you to be confused.” Bram prattles on about the novella. “He uses so many different devices to mess you up, right? Not just the non-linear narrative, but also unreliable accounts, prioritizing trivial details, switching between past, present and future at weird times: the works. It’s like he doesn’t just want you to just _read_ about how confused the townspeople are with the whole thing, but he wants you to _endure_ it.” 

Simon is in awe of Bram for two reasons. For one, he can’t believe what a giant fucking nerd his boyfriend is. When he was still Blue, it was one thing, but now that he can’t trim around the edges of his geekiness like he could in an email, it’s a whole other ballgame.

The tongue works against the mind when in the presence of a face you love and trust. In this, his doesn’t rest, typing a verbal essay on this book—a book which, regardless of whether the author wanted him to or not, Simon did not understand in the slightest—for fifteen minutes now. Bram, who once never spoke, talks about the things he loves until he cannot breathe, his voice stuttering and tripping over the speed he rambles about, most commonly, literature. 

The worksheet asks the name of Angela Vicario’s groom, so Bram goes on a tangent about the cult of virginity in Colombia in the 50’s. It mentions a brothel, and Bram is analyzing the application of magical realism and the blend of reality and fiction. Simon had written not chronological down when asked about the type of narrative and, after gently correcting his terminology, his boyfriend’s latest rant was more than expected. 

And yes, Simon is in awe of Bram for two reasons, but the second is moreso about himself: namely, a quickly stirring part of himself. Had it been foreseen that he’d be getting hard from English homework, sixteen year old, closeted Simon would have never believed it. But now he’s just turned eighteen—and Bram’s eyes are alight and Bram’s hands are moving ecstatically and the words are repeated in Bram’s voice—and he find himself extremely, remarkably aroused. 

Maybe he has a thing for intelligent men. Maybe he’s just eighteen and horny. Maybe he’s in love.

The blossoming warmth just below his naval answers all of the above. He suddenly feels the urge to touch him. As dignified a movement as he can muster in his condition, he inches his fingers up Bram’s thigh. “You really like this, don’t you?”

“I mean, it _is_ Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I’ve read everything by him.” He answers nonchalantly. Simon assumes he hasn’t felt his hand yet. “Did you know he won a Nobel Prize? Not for this book though, for _One Hundr—_ ”

He feels his hand now, directly where no one else is allowed to touch. Bram’s eyes darken, and Simon softens, feeling the vibrations in his throat more than he hears his own words. “I wasn’t talking about the book, Bram.” He murmurs. “I could listen to you talk like that all night long—you’re so freaking smart—but it kind of makes me want to do something else.”

“All night, huh?” Bram’s smiling—smirking, expression dark and concupiscent—and Simon thinks this is even hotter than a scholarly address. He kisses Bram once, heady and tender and esurient, but as soon as he starts to feel the colour purple, Bram mumbles against his lips. “We have to stop.”

Simon has removed his hand but still moves his lips, almost pleadingly, along Bram’s throat, nearing the most sensitive parts of his neck. “Why? There’s no one here.”

“Because if we don’t stop now, I—oh God, that feels good—I won’t ever want to stop—Simon, please—and my mom—wow—my mom won’t even let me sleep over at Garrett’s on a weekday.”

When Simon opens his eyes, he expects Bram to be wrought with apology. A sheepish smile, a disappointed crease between his brows but, instead, he has this look on his face that is so annoyingly, adorably impish. Oh—Simon melodramatically furrows his brow—so he’s playing that game. 

He pulls back and, though Bram does chase his lips in repentance, Simon makes a show of pouting. “Do you _have_ to be such a tease?” He tries to whine, but Bram’s giggling makes him laugh through it. “We’ve been dating for almost a year, you don’t have to play hard-to-get: I already _have_ you, do I not?”

“Hmm, yes. You certainly do.” 

“Besides,” Simon, forever the dunce of flirtation, gracelessly forces his voice to sound dark again. “We don’t have to have a sleepover to have sex.”

After about ten months of steady dating—and a handful of intimate, unsupervised nights—sex was not as much of an alien concept as it was when they were both a year younger. By now it was a fact of life—their life, much to Simon’s overwhelming joy—and the awkwardness had long passed. But Simon is clumsily forward, if not completely shameless, and Bram still—always—blushes at the indication of his being desired. 

“True.” Like always—and with much more charm than Simon will ever have—he recovers beautifully, adopting the perfect seductive tone. “You think we have enough time before Nora gets home?” He whispers, all deep tones and brown, brown eyes. 

Eyes as brown as leather; wise for their youth. Protective and steadfast, comfortable with their love--Simon is helpless not to have his entire body move closer. He falls in for the kiss—his body lax and trusting—so he is fatefully unprepared when Bram throws his body back onto the couch with the most evil laugh. Falling flat onto his face, his nose hitting the bottom of Bram’s ribs, he can feel the laughter reverberating in his boyfriend’s stomach. 

“Oh, that is so not cool.” He cries, head snapping up to look up at Bram. He wills coldness to his eyes but, with the breathlessness of Bram’s laughter, the disdain he’s trying for looks childish at best. 

Bram loops an arm around Simon’s waist, latching him against his body. “I’m serious, though.” He says, sobering. “My mom’s already on edge with me coming over here while your parents are gone. If we actually did anything, she would notice as soon as I get home.” 

“How would she ever know?” Simon says, before arching his eyebrow, incredulous. “Are you, Abraham Greenfeld, calling me _indiscreet?”_

“Simon that hickey you gave me last week looked like a _giant_ bruise.”

“Oh c’mon, I wasn’t that bad.”

“I had to wear a turtleneck for a week.” Bram exclaims. “I got too hot during soccer practice and had to make up some story to my coach about how I got it. Do you know how hard it is to bullshit how you got a bruise on your neck?” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry your boyfriend rocked your freaking world.” Simon has given up, but he keeps teasing, running his fingers along Bram’s hairline. He drags his index finger down and presses it to the side of Bram’s neck, just under his ear. “Hmm, it seems like it hasn’t totally gone away, want me to kiss it better?”

Neck deep in the comedy of it at this point, Simon purses his lips like a fish, making goofy, smacking noises close to Bram’s face. The closer the kissy faces get to actually kissing Bram, the more he laughs—this crisp, ringing laughter that is decibels louder than his speaking voice has ever gotten. More addictive— _that fucking sound is never not beautiful,_ Simon notes as the soundwaves settle in a puddle of warmth over his lungs and heart. It feels better than music. Better than Sufjan. Better than Elliott. 

He wants more, and more, and more—always, with everything Bram is and does—but, while he’s undeniably sentimental, he can’t shake the foolish mood they’ve gotten themselves into. He continues to wriggle around in Bram’s lap, making faces and teasing him about this and that. Bram joins in, fingers getting caught in the tangles of Simon’s unkempt hair. “Don’t you own a comb?” He tuts. “You look like a Fraggle.”

“A Fraggle? If anyone looks like a puppet, it’s you.” Simon tucks his fingers behind Bram’s ears, pushing them out. “Big Ears.”

Bram snatches Simon’s glasses and puts them back on him upside down. “Hmph, four-eyes.”

“Yeah, I have glasses, but at least I’m not a huge nerd.”

“Says the kid who thought soccer tryouts were called _auditions.”_

A big, wet kiss to the shell of his ear causes Bram to shout in surprise and push Simon off the couch. Simon chalks this up as a win.

Bram grabs at his ear to wipe the saliva off. “Yuck.” He makes a valiant attempt at feigning disgust but, with Simon giggling breathlessly on the carpet, the act is hopelessly cracked with amusement. Cracks that are very swiftly mortared with love; he kneels down to kiss Simon, one’s smile shaping the other. 

For a while, theories of the earth and literature prove to be imaginary. This here place is a blank sheet: no curfews, no turtlenecks, no mothers or fathers, no writings due on mid-twentieth century Colombia. There is only a room. Only them two, alone on the carpet, and the humour has dissipated along with everything else. Simon counts the minutes in songs, drifting softly from his iPod on the table.

 _10am Gare du Nord_ by Keaton Henson. The palpable joy of their banter is not lost, but replaced by something just as precious: the warm, slow trickle of oxytocin that comes from kissing, and kissing, and kissing, and kissing. Like this—kissing so deeply—they twine together on the floor, Bram opening up his body then closing it around Simon, arms and legs relaxing to enclose him. Three minutes, fifty-eight seconds. 

_Sex, Death and Landscapes_ by Tom Rosenthal. Simon lets his hands move slightingly over Bram’s body, assessing his permissions to each curve and dip by the enthusiasm in which Bram hums into his mouth. He seems happiest with fingers pressed firmly to the backs of his thighs. Two minutes and fifty-nine seconds more.

 _Mercury_ by Sufjan Stevens. _Follow My Voice_ by Julie Byrne. Back to Tom Rosenthal with _Ian._ Simon ignores both their erections and keeps his hands squeezing his thighs, respecting Bram’s grunted veto of anything around the circumference of his hips (which, as Simon gladly discovers, does not include his ass.) The minutes have spiralled; Simon doesn’t care to record them. He already knows this is the most time together, uninterrupted, that they’ve had in months.

Then, as if he’s jinxed it, Tom’s voice tapers off and the interruptions all come at once. 

A peaceful rift of piano and a sharp buzzing from Simon’s phone fills the air, but Bram has this sheepish grimace on his face. “What?” Simon asks—a little worried—touching Bram’s swollen lips and ignoring the phone in his back pocket. 

“I really don’t want to stop doing this.” Bram says, pressing another kiss onto Simon’s lips, “but I just…” Simon gets prepared to bend to Bram’s needs. Don’t want to go any further? _Then we’ll stop._ Feel uncomfortable? _Let’s just cuddle and watch a film._ Anxious? _Baby, love isn’t solely sexuality, there’s no pressure._ But I just, “…need to go to the bathroom.” 

Simon lets out this big, artless snort of laughter. Passion pleads for them to stop for nothing, so the banality of breaking for a basic human function is just funny to him. “Hmm.” His phone dings, and dings, and dings, but he just wiggles his shoulders from his place under Bram. “Maybe I can join you.”

“Simon, I know you’re trying to be sexy but I _really_ have to piss.”

Ding, ding. “You don’t know what I’m into.”

Bram wrinkles his nose. “That’s nasty.”

“There, it worked.” Ding. Simon laughs, tugging at Bram’s loosened jeans a little. “You wouldn’t have been able to get a drop out with that kind of hard-on. You’re welcome.” 

With a parting kiss and a muttered _weirdo,_ Bram dashes off to the bathroom, leaving Simon to flop back onto the couch. He pulls out his phone to investigate the incessant plinking of his ringtone.  
Several notifications from the Spier family group chat block his lockscreen wallpaper, so only Bram’s right ear, Leah’s nostrils and the tip of Abby’s afro are showing.

He opens the chat, scrolling through the missed exchange between his dad and Nora:

 **Paternal Unit** (Delivered 4:23pm) _Hey kiddos, just landed. Driving to our hotel. How are you doing?_

Ah, the first check-in of many. Simon scrolls slowly, reading Jack’s punctuated sentences converse with Nora’s blunter, cooler texting structure.

 **Nora the Explorer** (Delivered 4:28pm) _Good. At Hannah’s_

**Paternal Unit** (Delivered 4:28pm) _Studying I hope?_

 **Nora the Explorer** (Delivered 4:30pm) _Yeah, bio test on Friday_

Simon snorts: Nora’s the best liar in the family. They’re probably watching Pawn Stars in Hannah’s basement, not a book in sight. Nora will still ace the test, guaranteed. 

**Paternal Unit** (Delivered 4:31pm) _Good stuff. How’s your brother?_

 **Nora the Explorer** (Delivered 4:32pm) _I think he’s at home studying_

 **Paternal Unit** (Delivered 4:33pm) _With the boyfriend?_

 **Nora the Explorer** (Delivered 4:35pm) _Probably, idk tho_

At this point, the chat threatens Simon with three blinking dots, indicating that his father is typing, then deleting, then typing something else. If he wants to avoid persecution, he knows he has to act quickly. 

**Simon and Garfunkel** (Delivered 4:40pm) _I have interrupted your regular programming to confirm that an afternoon of studying-with-the-bf is indeed underway_

This appeases the dots and, presumably, Jack as well.

 **Paternal Unit** (Delivered 4:42pm) _Sweet, thanks for the update Anderson Cooper._

**Paternal Unit** (Delivered 4:42pm) _So how’s the weather in ol’ Shady Creek?_

 **Nora the Explorer** (Delivered 4:43pm) _idk we’re in the basement…why?_

Simon waits for his dad to start sending pictures and laughing at them—bragging about how the sunshine in Cancun beats anything Georgian skies could muster in late January—but he doesn’t respond. Curious, Simon gets up and pushes the curtains aside to look outside. Only, he can’t quite see outside. 

The snowstorm is probably the worst Simon has ever seen. The downfall moves with such speed and fitfulness that it casts a white static film over the world. In the few hours he and Bram had had the curtains drawn, snow had piled over the flower boxes and is pushing itself up against the window like it wants to come inside. Simon is overcome with a combination of disbelief and profound joy.

To himself, he smiles over one thing; to his father and sister, he says another.

 **Simon and Garfunkel** (Delivered 4:50pm) _holy cow that’s a lot of snow_

 **Paternal Unit** (Delivered 4:51pm) _Yup! My coworker sent me pics, says it’s the worst of the year. I don’t want you guys going anywhere tonight, okay? The roads are icy as hell. Nora, are the O’Quinn’s okay with you staying the night?_

 **Nora the Explorer** (Delivered 4:55pm) _Hannah’s parents said it’s fine that I sleep over…it’s probably gonna be a snowday tomorrow anyway_

 **Paternal Unit** (Delivered 4:56pm) _Ok kid, tell them we say thank you._

 **Paternal Unit** (Delivered 4:57pm) _And Si, tell Bram he can stay the night at ours. His mom won’t want him driving in this either._

Simon is radiating happiness.

 **Simon and Garfunkel** (Delivered 4:57pm) _roger that mission control_

 **Paternal Unit** (Delivered 5:00pm) _And your mother wants me to tell you that he can take the guest bedroom as a…precautionary measure lol_

**Simon and Garfunkel** (Delivered 5:02pm) _yeah sure, of course_

 **Paternal Unit** (Delivered 5:03pm) _Mom also says to not do anything you wouldn’t do if we were there…_

 **Paternal Unit** (Delivered 5:03pm) _and Dad says if you do he won’t tell Mom._

And now it’s about time this conversation ended.

 **Simon and Garfunkel** (Delivered 5:06pm) _um…thanks dad, but we’ll be good_

 **Paternal Unit** (Delivered 5:07pm) _Okay kid, just know #cooldad has your back ;)_

 **Simon and Garfunkel** (Delivered 5:09pm) _I love you but please quit while you’re ahead_

 **Nora the Explorer** (Delivered 5:11pm) _not to interrupt father/son bonding but_

 **Nora the Explorer** (Delivered 5:11pm) _dad you know mom can see this group chat too right?_

 **Paternal Unit** (Delivered 5:12pm) _No she can’t, she’s driving…_

Happy the pressure has been taken off him, Simon leaves his sister’s three blinking dots to deal with their father’s cluelessness, closing the chat and standing at the window. He looks at the snow and smiles; there’s this warm, embarrassed excitement in his gut. 

“Hey, babe!” He yells out. Bram is walking back from the kitchen with a big bowl of chips. “Have you seen this?” He gestures outside. “Look at this shit!”

Bram takes one look outside and his eyes turn the exact opposite colour of the snow. Brown to black and looking straight at Simon, pushed up by a smile just as dark. “My mom’s not going to let me leave this house,” is all he says. He doesn’t have to say any more for Simon to know they’re thinking the same thing.

“And my dad’s not going to let me leave.” Simon says. “Or let my sister come home.”

Bram abandons the bowl on the ottoman. “Well than I guess that means we’re stuck here alone for the night.” 

Simon smiles. Bram smiles, holding out a beckoning hand. Simon takes it and, suddenly, every bare swatch of Bram’s skin is prickled with possibility. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever ascended a staircase this fast before.

~~~

“ _God,_ yes, Simon, Simon, _Simon, Si_ —Si, I’m gonna…”

“Fuck. Me too, me too, just—“ 

It’s the kind of mess that neither of them rush to clean up. Once they’ve both unloaded and unravelled—bodies satisfied, lax on the bed—Simon pulls out and pulls off the condom. He can’t be bothered to do anything further. Stars and black spots ballroom dance before his eyes, so he takes a moment—he breathes hard, and so does Bram, and he gently lowers Bram’s knees from where they’re bent over his shoulders. 

“Wow.” Bram croaks, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “You’ve gotten really good at that.”

Simon finds a break in breathing to puff out a laugh, grabbing a cloth from the bedside table to clean himself off. Bram doesn’t let him get to it though, taking the cloth himself and wiping it down Simon’s stomach, quietly dabbing at the stickiness he’d left there. Simon touches his cheek, hot from exertion. “You’re not too shabby yourself, Abraham.”

This time, Bram laughs, using the energy of it to propel himself into a soft kiss with Simon. They kiss like this for a while—gently and calmly and uncaring of their naked, sweaty state—before Bram places a final smooch on Simon’s forehead and leaves for a shower. 

Hearing the flow of water through the walls, Simon putters around—stretching, cleaning his fogged up glasses, regarding his messy hair in the mirror. No, not messy—his hair was naturally messy—this was more like deranged: knotted, dishevelled and carded through by a hurricane. Through the hazy lenses of his glasses, by the bleary silver of his eyes, he’s come undone. He hasn’t yet been ready for the look of himself in the aftermath—like a ghost of a pre-coital world, a newborn habitant of post-ecstasy—or the knowledge that Bram is the one to have made him feel it. But, in that, he always smiles at his reflection.

Scooping up Bram’s discarded t-shirt from the floor, he begins to dress. He puts the shirt on with a pair of fluffy, Christmas themed pajama pants that had been gifted to him by Alice—he was pretty sure they were a women’s medium from _Ardene,_ but he refused to encourage the inevitable slew of short jokes, so he hadn’t asked. Regardless, they fit him well; better than Bram’s shirt. It’s too long and a little too tight around his stomach, but the fabric is soft and has this earthy, milky smell like grass stains that have just been scrubbed out in soap and hot water. 

Calmed by the scent, he floats over to the small stereo on his desk and plugs his iPod into the auxiliary cord. _Lemon yogurt, remember I pulled at your shirt / I dropped the ashtray on the floor / I just wanted to be near you,_ the speakers sung gently, starting Simon’s most romantic playlist right from where they left off, mid-song, to go upstairs. He swayed along to the plucking ukulele, laying out pajama pants on the bed and ducking into the closet to find Bram a sweatshirt. He looks for his softest sweater—his 2013 Theatre Festival sweater, purchased in premium sleeping size: XL. 

When Simon comes out from behind the door, sweater in hand, Bram is coming into the room, drying his hair. He has another towel around his waist. A towel, and nothing else. 

Simon flushes. “Wow.” 

Bram picks up the pajama pants, grinning in his boyfriend’s direction. “What?”

“I don’t know, it’s just…you, walking into my room like that.” He smiles but, this time—and he can’t explain why—he feels shy, fluttery. “It feels like a scene in a movie.” 

“Oh, so you like romance movies now?” Bram teases. “Because you know I’ve been _dying_ to see—“

Simon throws the hoodie at his face before he can continue. “I don’t.” He quips, getting giggly when Bram has to catch his towel as it slips off him. “I meant those slasher films where the killer is waiting in the bedroom to stab you after your shower.” He takes a step closer. “Naked and afraid.”

Bram takes a step as well. He raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t the cliché that they stab you _in_ the shower?”

“Not in my version.”

Then Bram sidles up to Simon, pants on but torso bare. His arms are prickled with goosepimples, so Simon runs his hands up and down them, trying to warm him. His hands go to his stomach, flat and lean—unlike his own—but Bram, without hesitation, puts his hands up Simon’s shirt nonetheless. In this, he always knows Bram will never ask him to change.

That doesn’t mean he won’t tease him: “Pray tell, Stephen King: how does your version end?”

“The killer was never a person in the first place.” Simon retorts. “The real antagonist is being naked and wet and putting your cold-ass hands up your boyfriend’s shirt.” Simon wriggles, but Bram only laughs and shoves his hands further up his sides. Simon shudders, but continues. “So the protagonist just puts on a hoodie, gets in bed, and snuggles with the boyfriend until they fall asleep.” He grins. “The end.”

Bram critiques the pilot with a blithesome kiss. “I love it, but it would get a terrible review on Rotten Tomatoes.” He mumbles against his lips.

Simon shrugs. “Then I guess it’ll just have to become a nihilist cult classic that’s only sold at gay film festivals and bong shops.” 

“Hated by most, coveted by like, seven.” 

“It’s my biggest aspiration.”

Once they’ve completely cleansed themselves of laughter, Bram puts on the hoodie. It’s baggy and adorable and Simon immediately takes him into his arms. They get under the covers, and Simon nestles his face in the back of Bram’s neck, peppering it with little, periodic kisses. 

Bram turns eventually, and they both smile, face-to-face. “You make me so freaking happy.” Simon says.

“Eh, you’re alright.”

Foolishly thinking they’d sobered, they are both shocked into bursts of laughter, interrupted only by Bram breathlessly repeating _just kidding, just kidding._ Simon slaps his shoulder. “You are _so_ mean!” He chuckles. “Blue wasn’t this sarcastic.”  
“ _Well!”_ Simon was the drama queen, no question, but Bram’s mock jealousy was fit for the stage. “Maybe you should go back to emailing him then.” 

“I would, but I don’t think he’d want to.”

Slowly—comforting, like the hearth, slow to sleep and leaving gently glowing embers—Bram’s face lifts with a smile. “You’re right.” He’s whispering now. If anyone else had been in the room, his voice like this would have cast them into redundancy. “I don’t think he’d want to live in a world where he couldn’t be with you, in the flesh. Where he couldn’t lie in bed next to you, or see your beautiful face. Those…those moon-grey eyes and your adorable, Fraggle hair and…” He runs a thumb across Simon’s bottom lip, “…your lips bruised from him kissing you.” Then he sighs. “God, I love you.”

Simon cannot express it. He cannot put into words the way it feels to have one hundred thousand lux of sunlight condensed in his heart. To have fifteen-billion cocoons hatch inside his body at once, it was that feeling of looking up love in the dictionary and realizing that the definition falls short. He feels like his words too will fall flat, so he just shrugs. “I guess I like you a little.”

Bram understands. “Alright, alright. I deserved that.” He laughs, but there is an intimate light in his eyes that only ever comes when Simon tells him he loves him.

As they lay in that cohesion, Simon’s playlist restarts itself, and sweet strums of guitar create a cloud of sound over their bodies, precipitating calm. The ragged edges of his fingernails snatch on the tips of Bram’s curls, and Simon softly sings. _“This feels right and I'm letting it, and now I know just what to do. Tire of me if you will, my dear. I will not tire of you.”_

Simon has never thought himself, for all his love of music, a good singer, but Bram always softens at the sound of his voice. He closes his eyes, and Simon can’t bear to continue—he must kiss him, immediately. The music plays on as he does, wrapping them both in affectionate twine, slipping through the slits between their melded mouths and reaching down into their hearts. It spirals and squeezes and, when Bram breathes out—“Keep singing to me.”—Simon feels an injection of pure joy enter his bloodstream. 

_“And please do not hurt me, love, I am a fragile one, and you are the white in my eyes. Please do not break my heart, I think it's had enough pain to last the rest of my life._  
_And I will not tire of you.”_

**Author's Note:**

> pop over to my [tumblr](https://grammarnerdboyfriend.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to say hi!


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